MINOR QUAKE HITS BOOTHEEL

NEW MADRID -- A minor earthquake along the New Madrid Fault Friday rattled dishes on tables and pictures on walls but apparently caused little damage and no injuries, authorities said

The National Earthquake Information Center in Denver said the tremor measured 4.6 on the Richter scale. Center spokesman John Minsch said the quake, which registered at 8:19 p.m., was centered 10 miles west of New Madrid.

Brian Miller, Cape Girardeau County emergency preparedness coordinator, said: "It was very spotty here. For example, I was in the office in the county building and I never felt a thing."

He said calls to individuals in Jackson revealed they had not felt the tremor, but some individuals in Cape Girardeau did. He also talked with two people in New Madrid; one felt the quake, the other did not.

"The most that happened around here was that it just rattled things around," Miller said. "Nobody has reported any damage.

"This just renews everyone's attention that it (the fault) is there and we need to keep thinking about it, but it doesn't need to be all-consuming."

Malden radio station KMAL news director Chuck Sutton said the quake rattled bricks from the front of a building in the downtown area of that city of 5,500 about 30 miles west of New Madrid.

"Luckily there was no one around," Sutton said. "I was in the building at the time. It scared the heck out of me."

Residents of northern and eastern Arkansas and parts of Illinois also reported feeling the quake.

Dunklin County Sheriff's Deputy Randal Midkiff said there were no reports of injuries at either Caruthersville or Kennett, the Bootheel county's two largest communities.

The New Madrid Fault extends from northeast Arkansas through southeastern Missouri and into southern Illinois. Radio and television stations in St. Louis reported being flooded by telephone calls from anxious people who felt the earth shake.

A major earthquake that was predicted for last December by New Mexico scientist Iben Browning had residents of the New Madrid Fault area on edge for several weeks, causing numerous schools to cancel classes.

But the prediction proved inaccurate. Seismologists say the fault zone, the site during the winter of 1811-12 of the nation's most powerful earthquake ever, has dozens of tremors each year.

Travis Burnett, a New Madrid County sheriff's deputy, said he was in his car at the time of Friday night's tremor.

"It shook us a little, but there were no reports of any damage," Burnett said. "They (callers) said maybe a bottle or two shook off a wall but no major damage or anything like that."

(Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.)